Connecting hardware in unconventional ways

The Lounge Other Gear
#1

Hi all!

Just a little topic to discuss on how people connect hardware stuff in unusual ways

i.e:
I have Electribe2 (the synth). It features 1 minijack input, so only 1 device can be connected.
But I tried yesterday with just my Monologue with an already distorted massive big lead-bass, and could split the signal on 3 Electribe tracks, with differents filters & fx:

1 with lp filter and bass boost fx (dont remember exact name
1 with bp filter, moved by a lfo, and flanger fx, sent to master fx (chorus)
1 with hp filter and distortion fx, signal sequenced to trigger just sometimes in a funky way.

Result: it sounds crazy and soooo massive!!! (not the vst :smiley: )
Needs some adjustment but it’s an example of what you can do.

And I used just 3 Electribe tracks, so with 16, with a more complex device, it can become evil! but probably a bit messy, and getting to voice stealing.

Next step: with this configuration, controlling the Monologue with my Digitakt.

Just wanted to share this and discuss on how you manage to use your stuff other ways than their initial goal.

Thanks for reading :wink:

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Program change to monologue query
#2

@LoomieDarko got my brain all spun up in another thread on this concept. We all have done this at one point or another but so far I’ve only done it out of necessity, not as an intentionally creative act.

My idea is still to be implemented but should be doable. I’m going to try running my Korg Monologue into the Digitone via a 1/4” Y cable so I can split the signal. Then in the DN I want to set the panning to hard left and hard right to create hopefully a super wide stereo signal and apply chorus / delay / reverb / overdrive to the signal.

One thing I just thought of though, since the signal split will be exactly the same, will it phase cancel itself? Could overcome that by sticking a pedal on one side of the signal though, to further mangle the sound :yum:

I have already done this with the Volca Drum into the DN. It sounds absolutely amazeballs with a light touch of overdrive and reverb. The effects on the DN were absolutely not just tack on features. They are pretty pristine and sound great :+1:

Anybody else play cable spaghetti?:spaghetti: (other than the modular peeps, we already know you do, and you constantly tempt me to go down the rabbit hole with your posts and musics! One day… one day…)

#3

Didn’t know DN has external inputs, and that you can apply its fx on this. Very good to know!
So you could plug your Volca Drum in your Monologue in your DN, making use of Monologue filter and distortion, then DN fx. Just an idea :slight_smile:

About phase cancel I don’t know, I really don’t know anything about this :confused:

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#4

If anyone is using their hardware in unconventional ways, I would love to hear about it (great idea for a thread @LoomieDarko). I thought this was going to be interesting, but not much discussion :confused:

Maybe there isn’t really a lot of ways to use gear unconventionally & that’s why there isn’t much discussion??

I’ve tried the trick where you plug an audio cable into the audio in of a sampler & instead of plugging the other end into another piece of gear, you touch the tip, which makes a buzz sound… sample the buzz, add a lopass filter & it becomes a bass note. But it didn’t work well when I tried it. My buzz was barely audible. So I think there’s more to it, like using a certain cable or really boosting the signal.

I love playing with signal chains & hooking gear up in different ways, but I think the most unconventional thing I’ve done with hardware is using guitar pedals with drum machines & synths.

I also love using hardware to make different genre’s than what they’re mainly used for. At the same time I’d think most hardware wasn’t built under the notion that only a certain genre would be made with it. But for example I mainly make boom bap / hip-hop / trip-hop, but I have a Blofeld & a Tr-8 (used to have an Electribe, but gave it to my brother. I had a lot of fun with that thing). I’m not really feeling the Tr-8, but I love the Blofeld (I’ve had it a few years).

I like using sounds you normally wouldn’t hear in a certain genre & either mutating the sound into something completely different (maybe to fit the genre better) or for example allowing the sound to continuing sounding like it’s made for trance & making it fit nicely in a boom bap beat.

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#5

Yeah I thought it would get more attention too. When you did the cable “buzz” trick where were you recording it to? If you record directly to the DT it will normalize the recording (and make mono) so normalizing it might do the trick to get it more audible. Could also try some compression, depending on how long the buzz is and what frequencies there are in what areas it should squash it down so that it kind of evens the entire sound out (then add gain to bring the tots volume up) try a longish “buzz” trying to get some variation in there by touching it a few times in different places on the wire. Might be an interesting spot you can cut out of the whole and turn into something neat!

Here is the Monologue Feedback Tip - where you take the output and feed it back into the input. There was concern of a feedback loops but it seems not to happen. I think because you have to have a key pressed for the incoming audio to be heard - there is a sequencer workaround where you can have silence running the entire time so you can then run a drum machine or whatever you want coming through without holding a key down.

#6

And that’s great to start with. If you like to play with sound, modify them and all that, you really should look into DIY electronics. Guitar pedals are good to start with, some of them are really simple and can transform audio in unexpected ways. There’s a lot of information online how you can get started.

#7

I tried recording into an MPC 2500. I didn’t try hard tho, I got distracted, normally I would try my best to solve the puzzle.

Thanks for the suggestions! I figured normalizing or compression (boosting the audio level) would do the trick. I tried a few years ago, I thought I normalized, but maybe not.

I love using found sounds, field recordings, pretty much anything & everything… turning regular sounds we hear thru out the day & turning them into something musical.

#8

I’m definitely interested in building something. I love to build things / work with my hands. I even had fun putting new tact switches in an MPC 1000 :slightly_smiling_face:

Starting with a guitar pedal makes sense, thanks for the tip! They’re small, simple devices & I adore effects. I’ve been doing a little research over the past year or 2… Below is a recent Elektronauts thread about building a soundbox & I think that would not only be a lot of fun, it should be rather simple to build as well.

#9

At one point when I had my Motu Microlite, it was sending midi notes from my DAW to my Reface CS, but doing it from all the different channels. I believe this was because it’s set to receive midi on all channels by default. It threw too many notes at it to where it was creating this staccato, glitchy type textures and it was pretty cool. It was an accident that ended up being put into a track. I’d say it was def. unconventional also unintentional.

Also overloading my old Alesis Quadraverb gives this digital clipping that, at times, can sound kind of cool. I know most people dislike digital clipping, but it sounded cool.

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#10

Yes, looks like fun to make and to use! :+1:

#11

you can thank @Synj00 too, he suggested me to open this thread :wink:

yeah, that’s it! Did same kind of thing a long time ago when I was kid with my Sh101 (thanks dad!). I was bored of playing it with headphones so I plugged it in my guitar amplifier, and forgot to turn off the distortion. I discovered Acid like that, and that sound made me positively mad and I spent the whole afternoon playing with that (before my grandma ask herself about my mental health :smiley: )

About the initial topic post, I didn’t have an hardware equalizer for my Monologue to create a multilayer bass-lead so I use Electribe2 instead, and discovered a really nice musical arpeggio/bass/hi-frequency-sound after accidentally changing my big lead to a drum patch on Monologue.

This brings me to think about something; unusual ways to use hardware can be from many reasons: errors, misunderstanding, just the lack of hardware to achieve something so use only what you own, experiments, …
Anyway the reason is, intentional or not, I think it opens unexpected & unknown territories.

@Synj00 it’s kind of same approach than using a Blofeld to make boom-bap music: you can learn the machine enough to reproduce boom-bap sounds, or create your own vision of boom-bap.

Being able to use hardware/software out of their original frames, intentionnaly or not; creating from mistakes and errors: this is, for me, one of the most interesting things in music, that brings new sounds, feelings, atmospheres, and helps Music evolving :wink:

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#12

LoomieDarko quote: Being able to use hardware/software out of their original frames, intentionally or not; creating from mistakes and errors: this is, for me, one of the most interesting things in music, that brings new sounds, feelings, atmospheres, and helps Music evolving :wink:

I feel the same, nicely put! I’ve come up with some amazing sounds & rhythms due to mistakes. I’ve probably learned the most from my mistakes as well.

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#13

Gez…ive done some weird things. I once had a friend (20 years ago now) who lived above a 2nd hand clothing shop, who had an engraver, she was etching art into a metal plate. It sounded intense so i grabed a pair of headphones and taped the speaker to the engraver and the jack into the input of an ibanez guitar multi effect that had loads of distortion, delay and reverb. Plugged the sinal into the amp that sent signal to the shop downstairs where shoppers were subjected to the outcome with no idea what was going on upstairs. Not many people bought something over those 2 hours…

not that unconventional in terms of signal flow i guess but the title of the thread made me laugh to myself as i remembered the shenanigans.

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